Another View: Keystone XL foes disregard facts, reality

The State Department has released its long-awaited report on a proposed 1,179-mile oil pipeline from Western Canada to a hub in Steele City, Neb. To call the environmental report exhaustive would be to understate badly the scope of the 11-volume study.

But for all the verbiage, the most important finding could be scribbled on a Post-it note:

Building the Keystone XL pipeline will have no significant environmental impact.

But we won't simply be moving forward, moving on, moving ahead with the project. Instead, Secretary of State John Kerry will review the report, which may take a year. And then he will issue his recommendation to the White House.

Here's what matters, put simply:

The oil in Western Canada will come from tar sands. And more carbon is emitted when oil is extracted from tar sands than when it is obtained from traditional wells.

For some - for many environmental activists and most all of the anti-fossil fuel set - that's the beginning and the end of the story. It's enough said. It's reason to kill the project.

Which is to miss the point completely.

Why? Because the oil will be extracted whether the Keystone XL pipeline is built or not. If it isn't constructed, the oil still will be extracted and the crude will be shipped by rail.

And the carbon emissions will be the same. Six of one and a half-dozen of the other. Same difference.

Well, not exactly the same. For shipping oil by rail, through cities and past residential areas, provides dangers all its own - perhaps even greater than those from moving it by a pipeline, which can be located away from populated centers.

The Keystone XL opponents have long been ringing the alarm bell even as they wring their hands, but they are quickly running out of ammunition.

-The Republican of Springfield (Mass.)

A 'win-win' project

Former Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said in an interview last week that he now endorses construction of the Keystone XL pipeline after learning that the project would not significantly increase carbon emissions.

That marked the first time that Salazar, now a lawyer in the private sector, has publicly endorsed the project.

Speaking at an energy conference in Texas, Salazar said he thinks construction could "be done in a way that creates a win-win for energy and the environment."

At the North American Prospect Expo, he also said: "At the end of the day, we are going to be consuming that oil. So is it better for us to get the oil from our good neighbor from the north, or to be bringing it from ... the Middle East?"

-The Town Talk

ADVERTISEMENT

ADVERTISEMENT

ADVERTISEMENT

Email this article

Another View: Keystone XL foes disregard facts, reality

The State Department has released its long-awaited report on a proposed 1,179-mile oil pipeline from Western Canada to a hub in Steele City, Neb. To call the environmental report exhaustive would be